With one (1!) second left, Clemson scored the game-winning touchdown, allowing the Tigers to finish the season at the top for the first time since 1981.

That was six days ago; just now the most keenly-anticipated match-up of the National Football League post-season to date, Green Bay at Dallas was decided in exciting fashion.

Behind a near flawless effort from Quarterback Aaron Rogers, the Packers raced out to a 21-3 second quarter lead, and video of the players on the Dallas sideline showed a stunned and dejected Cowboys team.

"It's over!" I told my buddy Marty. They're beaten and they know it!

(This was a prime example of why I don't handicap sporting events!)

Late in the fourth quarter, though, Dallas had plugged away and was able to make a two-point conversion to tie the contest at 28-28 with 98 seconds remaining.

At that point, the football game took on the aspect of the final two minutes of an NBA game as the teams took turns racing up and down the field just enough for their respec­tive kickers to make field goals, all three in excess of 50 yards, the final one giving Green Bay a 34-31 victory as time expired.

Wow! Pulse-pounding to the last second, and the right team won!

The Packers have been a huge thorn in my Detroit Lions' paw since the early '60s, but institutionally I have had a major detestation for the Dallas Cowboys since the '70s when the late John Facenda, the memorable voice of NFL Films, referred to them as "America's Team."

The sobriquet stuck, mostly because the franchise latched onto it and promoted it for all its worth, offending me (and many other Americans) in the process.

(I'd've been just as offended had that tag somehow been affixed to my Detroit Lions.)

So while those Lions again came up short... as they have every year since 1957... the season wasn't a total loss, 'cause the Cowboys went down in ignominious defeat after an unexpectedly successful season.